“Yet she does not know it. We are used to the Red Band drilling at night. I knew what was coming yesterday, and at night I drew her curtains close so she could not see what was going on. When the guns went off she sprang out of bed. She heard her father’s cry. I could not stop her before she threw on a cloak and ran down stairs in her bare feet. She met her father in the doorway taken with one of his strange fits. She had no eyes for anything but him. She did not see poor Ronald lying in a heap, nor Meg.” “She cannot be kept in ignorance forever. How long has this thing been going on?” “Not long. The Red Band is a new thing. It will bring ruin upon the house. My poor mistress, when she learns the truth! The truth will break her heart, she is so strong for right.” The tears were streaming out of the poor girl’s eyes. “Promise me you will do nothing to harm my mistress.” “I swear before God I shall protect her.” Then we fell to musing and rode for half an hour before Annetje asked me to tie her mask again. “It is time we were going home,” she said. “There is some distance yet, for I have led you round about and we are scarcely a quarter of a mile from the city wall.” A hundred yards brought us to the Post Road, along which we turned to the left, galloping rapidly northward towards the Hanging Rock. On our right, not more than a mile from the town was, and is for aught I know to the contrary, an old tumble-down tannery. We were approaching this ramshackle building when five men suddenly dashed out on us. They were all rough looking fellows, and each one of them wore a black mask over his face. In spite of this disguise, I recognized the hindmost man. The jumbled figure like a mass of jelly in the saddle—so unlike the stiffness with which he sometimes rode—proclaimed him to be Louis Van Ramm. Because of his presence I could hardly believe this sortie to be an attack upon me till I heard the cry of the foremost rider caught up and repeated by the others. “Down with him. Down with the Red Band. Fire.” Four of their muskets rang out at once. I heard Annetje scream, and expected to fall dead, but I was not even hurt. The fifth man had got so close to me that he shot off his gun at my very breast. Then Louis raised the butt end of his musket and struck me on the head. All this happened so suddenly that I had not had time even to draw my sword. When Louis’s gun fell, I reeled. I just remember Annetje’s shriek, and the hoofbeats of her horse like a great echoing drum. Next I felt myself sliding from the saddle, and then all is a blank to this day. My grandfather used to say, “Telling dreams is but another name for lying;” so I shall not speak of the glorious visions of war and battle that thronged through my brain before I came to myself again. But regain consciousness I did, and in the following manner.